Psyche A Williams-Forson

Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is professor and chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. She is author of Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America (winner of the James Beard Media Award for Food Issues and Advocacy, 2023); co-editor of Taking Food Public: Redefining Food in a Changing World (2013); and Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (winner of the Women’s Division Prize, American Folklore Society). She is known nationally and internationally for her work in building the scholarly subfield of Black food studies, and she has published extensively in this area. She has also been interviewed on such documentaries as Al Roker's "Family Style" (NBC Today), Netflix’s "Ugly Delicious," and The Invisible Vegan. Dr. Williams-Forson is an affiliate faculty member of the Theatre, Dance, and Performing Studies, the Departments of African American Studies, Anthropology, The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. Dr. Williams-Forson is also a PI on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, Breaking the M.O.L.D. (Mellon/Maryland Opportunities for Leadership Development), an initiative to develop a pipeline to higher ed leadership of women and BIPOC scholars in the arts and humanities. For more on her public-facing research, please see psychewilliamsforson.com.

Select Publications:

• Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America UNC Press, 2022 - 2023 James Beard Foundation Award Winner - Food Issues and Advocacy
• Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World. Routledge, 2013.
• Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power. UNC Press, 2006.
• “Finding the Hidden Potential in Workplace Eating.” THRUUE. 2021.
• “In ‘Trouble’ with(out) Culture: Food Shaming and African American Foodways.” Spectra (Magazine of the National Communication Association). September 2019. 20 – 25.
• “Food as Hieroglyphics: Amiri Baraka and Black Expressive Culture.” Journal of American Studies of Turkey. 51 (2019): 43-48.
• “Black Lives Matter, Even in Food Justice.” Food, Fatness, Fitness Blog. http://foodfatnessfitness.com/author/psyche-williams-forson/ - Germany: Erfurt University. 2016.
• “ ‘I Haven’t Eaten If I Don’t Have My Soup and Fufu’”: Cultural Preservation through Food and Foodways among Ghanaian Migrants in the United States.” Africa Today 61.1 (2014): 69-87
• Focus Essay - “Who’s in the Kitchen with Dinah? Intersectionality and Food Studies.” Food, Culture, and Society 14.1 (March 2011): 7-16.